Ubuntu Manpage: setfont - load EGA/VGA console screen font

NAME

       setfont - load EGA/VGA console screen font

SYNOPSIS

       setfont [-O font+umap.orig] [-o font.orig] [-om cmap.orig] [-ou umap.orig] [-N] [font.new ...]  [-m cmap]
       [-u umap] [-C console] [-hH] [-v] [-V]

DESCRIPTION

       The setfont command reads a font from  the  file  font.new  and  loads  it  into  the  EGA/VGA  character
       generator,  and optionally outputs the previous font.  It can also load various mapping tables and output
       the previous versions.

       If no args are given (or only the option -N for some number N), then a default (8xN) font is loaded  (see
       below).   One may give several small fonts, all containing a Unicode table, and setfont will combine them
       and load the union.  Typical use:

       setfont
              Load a default font.

       setfont drdos8x16
              Load a given font (here the 448-glyph drdos font).

       setfont cybercafe -u cybercafe
              Load a given font that does not have a Unicode map and provide one explicitly.

       setfont LatArCyrHeb-19 -m 8859-2
              Load a given font (here a 512-glyph font combining several character sets) and indicate that one's
              local character set is ISO 8859-2.

       Note: if a font has more than 256 glyphs, only 8 out of 16 colors can be used simultaneously. It can make
       console perception worse (loss of intensity and even some colors).

FONT FORMATS

       The standard Linux font format is the PSF  font.   It  has  a  header  describing  font  properties  like
       character  size, followed by the glyph bitmaps, optionally followed by a Unicode mapping table giving the
       Unicode value for each glyph.  Several other (obsolete) font formats are recognized.  If the  input  file
       has  code  page  format  (probably with suffix .cp), containing three fonts with sizes e.g. 8x8, 8x14 and
       8x16, then one of the options -8 or -14 or -16 must be used to select one.  Raw  font  files  are  binary
       files  of size 256*N bytes, containing bit images for each of 256 characters, one byte per scan line, and
       N bytes per character (0 < N <= 32).  Most fonts have a width of 8 bits, but with the framebuffer  device
       (fb) other widths can be used.

FONT HEIGHT

       The  program  setfont  has no built-in knowledge of VGA video modes, but just asks the kernel to load the
       character ROM of the video card with certain bitmaps. However, since Linux 1.3.1 the kernel knows  enough
       about  EGA/VGA  video modes to select a different line distance. The default character height will be the
       number N inferred from the font or specified by  option.  However,  the  user  can  specify  a  different
       character height H using the -h option.

CONSOLE MAPS

Several mappings are involved in the path from user program output to console display. If the console is
in utf8 mode (see unicode_start(1)) then the kernel expects that user program output is coded as UTF-8
(see utf-8(7)), and converts that to Unicode (ucs2). Otherwise, a translation table is used from the
8-bit program output to 16-bit Unicode values. Such a translation table is called a Unicode console map.
There are four of them: three built into the kernel, the fourth settable using the -m option of setfont.
An escape sequence chooses between these four tables; after loading a cmap, setfont will output the
escape sequence Esc ( K that makes it the active translation.

Suitable arguments for the -m option are for example 8859-1, 8859-2, ..., 8859-15, cp437, ..., cp1250.

Given the Unicode value of the symbol to be displayed, the kernel finds the right glyph in the font using
the Unicode mapping info of the font and displays it.

Old fonts do not have Unicode mapping info, and in order to handle them there are direct-to-font maps
(also loaded using -m) that give a correspondence between user bytes and font positions. The most common
correspondence is the one given in the file trivial (where user byte values are used directly as font
positions). Other correspondences are sometimes preferable since the PC video hardware expects line
drawing characters in certain font positions.

Giving a -m none argument inhibits the loading and activation of a mapping table. The previous console
map can be saved to a file using the -om file option. These options of setfont render mapscrn(8)
obsolete. (However, it may be useful to read that man page.)

UNICODE FONT MAPS

       The correspondence between the glyphs in the font and Unicode values is described by  a  Unicode  mapping
       table.   Many  fonts have a Unicode mapping table included in the font file, and an explicit table can be
       indicated using the -u option. The program setfont will load such a Unicode mapping table,  unless  a  -u
       none  argument  is given. The previous Unicode mapping table will be saved as part of the saved font file
       when the -O option is used. It can be saved to a separate file using the -ou file option.  These  options
       of setfont render loadunimap(8) obsolete.

       The  Unicode  mapping  table  should assign some glyph to the `missing character' value U+fffd, otherwise
       missing characters are not translated, giving a usually very confusing result.

       Usually no mapping table is needed, and a  Unicode  mapping  table  is  already  contained  in  the  font
       (sometimes this is indicated by the .psfu extension), so that most users need not worry about the precise
       meaning and functioning of these mapping tables.

       One may add a Unicode mapping table to a psf font using psfaddtable(1).

OPTIONS

       -h H   Override font height.

       -m file
              Load console map or Unicode console map from file.

       -o file
              Save previous font in file.

       -O file
              Save previous font and Unicode map in file.

       -om file
              Store console map in file.

       -ou file
              Save previous Unicode map in file.

       -u file
              Load Unicode table describing the font from file.

       -C console
              Set the font for the indicated console. (May require root permissions.)

       -v     Be verbose.

       -V     Print version and exit.

NOTE

       PC video hardware allows one to use the "intensity" bit either to indicate brightness, or to address  512
       (instead  of  256)  glyphs  in  the  font.  So, if the font has more than 256 glyphs, the console will be
       reduced to 8 (instead of 16) colors.

FILES

       /usr/share/consolefonts is the default font directory.  /usr/share/unimaps is the default  directory  for
       Unicode maps.  /usr/share/consoletrans is the default directory for screen mappings.  The default font is
       a file default (or default8xN if the -N option was  given  for  some  number  N)  perhaps  with  suitable
       extension (like .psf).